Ultimate Wolverine Vs Hulk #6: A Medical Review

Ultimate Wolverine Vs Hulk #6
Damon Lindelof, writer
Leinil Francis Yu, artist

Scene from Ultimate Wolverine Vs Hulk #6

Wolverine doesn’t seem to have a very good grasp of anatomy. It is anatomically impossible for Wolverine to injure She-Hulk the way he’s suggesting.

I’ve included a couple of anotated images to demonstrate. Wolverine has one claw in her spleen (left side of her abdomen), a second claw in her left kidney (far left part of her abdomen), and threatens to put the claw in between them in her liver — which is found on the right side of her abdomen.

cover, Astonishing X-Men #1scene from Ultimate Wolverine vs Hulk #3

As for the rest of Wolverine’s threat: he’s right, injuries to the spleen bleed, and they bleed a lot — after all, the spleen is basically just a blood-filled sponge. On the other hand, a puncture wound to the kidney will cause some damage, but as long as the renal blood vessels and the ureter aren’t damaged, it’ll continue to function (plus, as he points out, she’s got a second one). Similarly, a puncture wound of the liver would bleed, but not as much as the spleen. More importantly, Wolverine seems to be forgetting that She-Hulk has a healing factor — just a few issues before she jumped out of a supersonic jet without a parachute and survived. She’ll survive two or three claws.

This issue was brought to my attention by J. Sisk. He was also kind enough to provide a scan of the scene in question.

14 Responses to “ Ultimate Wolverine Vs Hulk #6: A Medical Review ”

  1. What about the angle? if, the puncture is from a certain point, wouldn’t that middle claw be able to reach the liver as well? This is of course assuming that there’s some flexible leeway on that picture (did they have any more shots of the stab?).

    ~sLs~

  2. Wolvie’s claws can pass through non-Euclidean space to strike whatever he needs?

    It might be possible for him to do as he’s describing, if attacking from the upper right (er, her upper left) rather than straight on… and he went in through her side… and his middle claw was about two feet longer than the rest.

  3. Wait, how do we know it’s the LEFT kidney ? Couldn’t it be the right one, which may make this more doable ?

  4. The art, both in this panel and subsequent panels, suggests the left kidney was the one injured.

    The right kidney possibility had crossed my mind too, but then Wolverine’s hand would have to be about 18 inches across.

  5. Sound like the writer was thinking of Daken’s claws. His third comes out of his wrist. Still a lot of distance between the organs though

  6. Maybe he just used both hands.

  7. Doesn’t fit the image or Wolverine’s comments about the “first,” “second,” and “middle” claws.

  8. That why he’s ‘ULTIMATE’ Wolverine!

  9. Maybe he just used both hands.
    Doesn’t fit the image or Wolverine’s comments about the “first,” “second,” and “middle” claws.

    “Middle Claw” is a euphemism for “penis”?

  10. It occurs to me this is an asinine thing for Wolverine to say, even if the alignment isn’t an issue.

    This is She-Hulk, who has super-healing. Maybe not quite Hulk-level, but pretty darned good. Good enough Wolverine knows he’s not killing her with 2 claws. (!)

    So he threatens to puncture the liver and “that’ll be that”. SAY WHAT?!?!?

    The liver is one of the most durable organs in that sense. When they do a liver transplant from a live donor, the liver regrows in both people. (Don’t know how much, but it’s not an issue per se.)

    So why would puncturing it kill She-Hulk? She should grab his wrist, let him puncture it, pull his hand out, then swing him by the ankle at 800+ miles per hour into some cement and pour his brains out his earhole. She can heave things a mile, she can at least achieve that velocity at the end of a 6 foot “bat” she swings.

  11. I’m suprised that nobody considered the possibility that maybe he was bluffing.

  12. Wouldn’t it be a major assumption to think She-Hulk’s organs were proportional to a human organ placement. The fact that she would probably have other organs beyond what a human would have like the Hulk in Ultimate Human as described by Stark’s research team would mean an anatomical reorganization. Most organs other than lungs and heart would be proportionally smaller than human and packed tighter together. That being said Wolverine would just be guessing and slicing arteries and organs would mess She-Hulk up but I doubt it would kill her but would she know that having never experiencing Wolverine’s claws before. Would she chance death or be thinking of proper organ arrangement with claws in her vital areas?

  13. I don’t care if Wolverine was bluffing or not, but the thing that make me laugh is, Betty Ross is an scientist, and she still scared of what Wolverine said lol

  14. He uses both hands. Each one is his middle claw. The left hand is just in shadow.

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